


Suspended Animation

by Littleviolentone



Series: Anger of a Gentle Man [1]
Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Angry Mac, Episode Related, Episode: s03e14 Father + Bride + Betrayal, F/M, How Do I Tag, Worried Mac, because what he's doing now is not healthy, fine i'll do it myself, get my baby some help, let Mac be angry you cowards, macriley, there were not enough fics making use of this episode, umm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-25
Updated: 2020-02-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:55:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22891357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Littleviolentone/pseuds/Littleviolentone
Summary: Olvera was at least a hundred and fifty pounds heavier, and about a foot taller, than Riley. Given the condition of his body when they’d found him, as well as Riley’s small size, he estimated she had maybe thirty minutes to live, with some margin for error. Mac didn’t like his lack of clarity when the stakes were so high, but without doing more tests to narrow down the exact type of cyanide compound in her system, he could only work within the known variables. He didn’t have time for anything else.
Relationships: Billy Colton/Riley Davis (MacGyver TV 2016), Riley Davis/Angus MacGyver (MacGyver TV 2016)
Series: Anger of a Gentle Man [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1648357
Comments: 17
Kudos: 202





	Suspended Animation

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first story on this site, and for this fandom, and maybe my third story overall so please be gentle with me. I thought there was a lot of untapped potential in this episode so here I am. I'm messing around with the timeline a little. I also have no idea about the symptoms or treatment of cyanide poisoning, so don't quote me there. Please, enjoy!
> 
> Love,  
> Little Violent One

Mac didn’t have much room in his head for things that weren’t connected to keeping Riley alive just then. All thoughts of the mission success, Mattie’s job safety, even Jack’s upcoming deployment were put instantly on hold when he saw her on the ground.

He doubted any of his team would have been bothered by this even if he had tried to tell them, as they all seemed to have switched gears with him. He did his best to stay calm and keep his nervous team updated on their little hacker’s condition as his mind began to work the problem.

Olvera was at least a hundred and fifty pounds heavier, and about a foot taller, than Riley. Given the condition of his body when they’d found him, as well as Riley’s small size, he estimated she had maybe thirty minutes to live, with some margin for error. Mac didn’t like his lack of clarity when the stakes were so high, but without doing more tests to narrow down the exact type of cyanide compound in her system, he could only work within the known variables. He didn’t have time for anything else. 

Laying her overly still body on the table in the hotel kitchen, Mac set to work. Fighting back his own sense of rising panic to do his job had been required of him since joining the army, but it was always more difficult when someone you cared about was at risk. This was true for the whole team, which was the only reason he didn’t ignore or snap at them for their constant interruptions to his work. Didn’t they realize that the more they distracted him, the more likely she was to die? But saying that wouldn’t help Riley either, so Mac held his tongue.

Supplies gathered and chemicals mixed, Mac looked Riley over one more time. A sharp cold fear he didn’t have time to put a name to tried to drown him, Mattie’s horrified question of, “Whose blood?” pulled him back. He was running out of time, he could panic about this later when Riley was back on her feet. God he hoped this would get her back on her feet.

Mac took a deep breath and dragged the blade of his pocket knife across his finger. The edge was too dull to make a clean cut, and he was probably using too much pressure, but as long as he got enough blood into the solution to make the antidote, he didn’t really care if he cut his finger off. He kept talking to the team to keep them as calm as possible, letting his mouth go on auto-pilot about the science while the rest of him focused on Riley. 

The next few moments were a blur of mixing, straining, and pouring, then he was holding her head and angling a spray bottle at her nose.

“Sorry, Riles. This is gonna suck” he said, by way of both prayer and apology. 

There was a horrifying few seconds where nothing happened. Distantly he was aware of Jack’s voice demanding news he didn’t have. Mac was beginning to lose the iron grip he had on his on his own panic, when he heard her cough. A small cough followed by her body weakly trying to move, heart in his throat, he helped her up. The whole universe was held in a state of suspended animation as he helped her balance, put a gentle hand to her face, and waited on baited breath for her to open her eyes. 

Her lashes lifted, the world resumed turning, time ticked back into place, and Mac would have sworn in that second, that he had never seen anything more beautiful than her groggy hazel eyes. 

“She’s okay! She’s okay!” He called to the team, and got a chorus of relived exclamations in reply as he gathered her slightly shivering frame to his chest and held her.  
Mac gave himself one moment before his brain switched gears, once again, back to the case. And if the rage he felt at Riley being poisoned bled through his control more than the panic had, oh well. If his anger colored his tone, steadied his hands, or quickened his steps no one mentioned it.

Normally Mac would have more sympathy for a woman who’s grandmother had murdered her father on her wedding day, he was a caring man by nature after all. But in that moment all he could offer the heartbroken bride was silence. Mac didn’t have much room in his head for anything that wasn’t connected to assisting Riley’s recovery just then. 

\---

Jack had to physically hold him back from climbing into the ambulance with Riley when it arrived. Watching the EMTs load the still groggy woman from pallet of cushions and blankets he’d made her onto a cold medical gurney made him clench his jaw, and Mac had to actively fight to keep from telling the trained medical professionals how to do their jobs.

The hours in the waiting room, while nowhere near as grim and helpless as their night waiting for news on Cage, were beyond stressful. With everything he could possibly be doing for her having already been done, Mac was left alone with his thoughts. A dangerous place to be. 

While he was working to save Riley his mind had tuned out almost everything else, but now that there was time to breathe other details started filtering their way in. He remembered the soft feel of her skin as he had checked her for wounds. He remembered the silky glide of her hair through his fingers as he’d gently held her head, and the subtle notes of figs and roses in her perfume. He chuckled to himself when he thought about how nerdy and weird Riley would find it that he could identify the components of her perfume so easily.

Mac’s mind gave him a flash of how she had looked lying on that metal table only hours ago. She was always so full of energy and life and attitude, even when she was calm and still her personality took up so much space that it had startled him to be reminded of how physically small she really was. She normally had heels or thick boots on, and Mac rarely had cause to hold her the way he had that day, but he couldn’t deny the evidence; at five-foot-four she was tiny, and lying on that table she had looked it. She had looked tiny, and fragile, and terrifyingly human.

But when she woke up? When her beautiful eyes had finally met his, he had been so staggeringly, elatedly relived, that the only possible way to see her was as absolute perfection. As a miracle made manifest before his eyes, and that rattled him more than a little.

He was a man of science, not faith. He hadn’t prayed since his mom had died, hadn’t believed in miracles in about that long either. He didn’t have as many memories of his mother as he had impressions, but he remembered that she had always said a prayer over his bed when she tucked him in at night. To be suddenly thrown back into thoughts of faith was jarring and uncomfortable, he shook himself out of the thought as best he could. 

He was saved from thoughts of fear, grief, and confusion when Billy Colton came rushing through the door into the waiting room.

“Where is she?” he demanded of the room at large. His anxious gaze jumped from Jack to Bozer to Mattie to Mac, and back again.

“She’s still back with the Doc,” Jack explained as he stood to move towards Riley’s boyfriend. “She’s stable and she’ll pull through no problem, don’t you worry about that. They’re just runnin’ some tests to see how best to treat her, an’ how long to keep her here, which she will no doubt fight tooth an’ nail against.” Billy didn’t seem comforted by this news, or by Jack’s tired but well meant grin.

“How did this happen? What the hell were y’all doing that Riley got poisoned by cyanide?!” He was practically yelling now. “Who even uses cyanide, besides Agatha Christie villains!?”

“Billy!” Mattie took charge of the situation as only she could. “You need to calm down or hospital security will escort you out.” He had the good grace to at least look chastised.

“What happened, how was she poisoned?” he asked again, in a more controlled tone.

“I can’t tell you that,” she cut him off before he could voice a protest. “Riley was poisoned while on assignment for the United States Government. Her work is classified, and you do not have the clearance to know anything more than that.”

Mac could see Billy becoming agitated again, and found himself moving in tandem with Jack to subtly place themselves between Billy and Mattie. 

“I’m her boyfriend.” Billy argued. “I have a right-”

“No you don’t,” snorted Bozer.

“What did you say?” the larger man said, turning on Boze.

“He said, no you don’t.” Mac all but growled, stepping forward to take up Billy’s full attention. “You’re her boyfriend, not her husband. Legally speaking the hospital can’t give you any information on her unless she wants them to. And you are not a government agent, you’re a bounty hunter. You do not have the clearance to know what happened to Riley today. Even if anyone here wanted to tell you. She was poisoned, I got her the antidote, she’s stable now, we’re waiting for the doctor to get back to us with more news. That is all the information you are entitled to.”

Billy looked about ready to kill him, and Mac was finding it difficult to care. Who the hell was this guy to think that his worry for Riley superseded theirs? Who did he think he was making demands and talking about rights like he had any here? 

Mac couldn’t sort through all he felt for Riley but he knew that she was family. She had been an unbiased ear after the whole Nikki debacle, she’d slept in the office during his prison mission. He had watched her mouth off to a copy-cat Zodiac Killer, and Murdoc. She had saved so many lives with her tech skills alone. On a mission he could count on Riley to understand him, and even predict his plans faster than anyone else. At home she could always see when his smiles were fake and his attitude put on, and pull him out of it. And he found himself doing the same for her, and she had almost died today. So if Billy wanted to be an asshole and give Mac a convenient target for all of his suppressed rage, and fear, and confusion, Mac was happy to let him.

There was a heavy hand on his shoulder and Jack’s voice in his ear, “Take it down a notch, Mac.”

But Mac didn’t want to take it down, he wanted to let it burn. He wanted to punch Billy in the throat and keep going until they were both too bruised and bloody to stand anymore. He wanted to turn off the constant clamoring in his head with the simple release of a hard fight. Mac longed to just beat on something till it broke, and have no obligation to fix it afterwords. But he couldn’t do that, Billy wasn’t who he was mad at, or at least, mostly not.

If he gave in here, and let all of his anger out on Billy it would be so much worse in the long run. And Riley would be pissed if he put both Billy and himself in the hospital while they were supposed to be there for her.

That thought is what finally pierced through the haze; He was here for Riley, his temper could wait. He let Jack pull him a few feet away and drop him back into one of the hard plastic chairs of the waiting room before he tuned out again. 

Vaguely he could hear Mattie talking to Billy once more. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Jack take up a guard position behind their fearless director, and Bozer took a seat next to Mac, who didn’t respond. Mac would never know how long he sat there, just trying to reign in his temper when the other door opened. 

The door on the other end of the waiting room, where the doctors had taken Riley. A man in his mid-fifties wearing blue scrubs now stood among them and addressed the group as a whole.

“Which one of you is MacGyver?”

Mac stepped forward on trembling legs and, for the second time in twenty-four hours, the whole universe was held in a state of suspended animation while he waited on baited breath to hear the news.

**Author's Note:**

> If you have any questions, comments or concerns feel free to contact me. I write for the joy of it and I want others to have fun reading my stuff, so any encouragements or constructive criticism is welcome. If people like it I might make it a series. Let me know what you think.
> 
> Love,  
> Little Violent One


End file.
